Ukip's latest attempt to draw a line under accusations of racism and extremism suffered a fresh blow today as it emerged one of its candidates used his Facebook page to 'like' a series of Nazi war criminals.

The row threatened to overshadow a bizarre ethnic minority ‘rally’ hosted by Nigel Farage in London in a bid to show he does not lead a racist party.

Black and ethnic minority candidates and councillors were paraded at the ‘myth-busting’ event in an attempt to counter a string of damaging stories about racist and sexist comments made by some Ukip candidates.

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Nigel Farage rejected accusations of racism leveled against the party at last night's ethnic minority rally in London

The Ukip leader said the party was not racist - and paraded a host of ethnic minority supporters as proof

John Withill, who is standing as a UKIP candidate in the Armley ward of Leeds, West Yorks, created a section on his public Facebook page listing a collection of ‘inspirational people’.

Anti-racism group Hope Not Hate say the people he ‘likes’ include convicted war criminals Kurt Student, Albert Kesselring and Albert Speer.

Speaking ahead of last night's event Nigel Farage conceded that too many ‘idiots’ had slipped through the party’s vetting procedures and said he planned to ‘fight back’ against the impression they had made.

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Last night’s event was targeted by more than 100 anti-fascist demonstrators. Amid chaotic scenes, more than a dozen were ejected from the hall by security guards after heckling Ukip speakers.

A noisy group of around 100 anti-fascism protesters gathered outside the building.

The party paraded around 50 black and minority ethnic councillors and election candidates on the stage, who stood behind Mr Farage as he spoke.

Amjad Bashir, the party’s small and medium size business spokesman, told the rally: ‘Take a look at all the faces and skin colours represented on this stage and tell me Ukip is a racist party.’

Ukip’s drive to feature more diverse supporters underlines concerns about the damage being done by exposure of the racist views of some of its supporters. Until now, it has tended to claim it is being singled out for criticism and suggested it will not bow to political correctness.

Andre Lampitt, the star of Ukip’s latest political broadcast, was suspended last month for claiming Ed Miliband is ‘not British’, Africans should ‘kill themselves off’ and Nigerians are ‘bad people’.

Other council candidates subject to disciplinary action by the party include a conspiracy theorist linking the Prince of Wales to allegations of paedophilia on the basis that he knew Jimmy Savile, and another who suggested that Lenny Henry should emigrate to a ‘black country’.

Earlier this month Mr Farage launched the party's Euro-elections billboard campaign, with a controversial picture of an escalator welcoming immigrants to Britain

Addressing last night’s rally, Mr Farage said: ‘I don’t care if you disagree with us, I don’t care if you think we’d be better off in government with Cameron, Miliband or Clegg, I don’t care if you think uncontrolled immigration is better for Britain, I don’t care what you call us - right wing, left wing, small minded. But from this moment on please do not ever call us a racist party. We are not a racist party.’

He said that only those who share the party’s views can become members and that its membership forms clearly state that extremists are not welcome.

But he added: ‘There will always be a few people who creep over the line and cause us embarrassment. I would rather for the ten people out of 2,234 ‎who have said things that are extremist or offensive that it hadn’t happened.

‘These idiotic statements of a handful of people have been lifted up as representing the view of the party, but they never have and never will.’

The Leeds candidate who 'liked' Nazi war leaders on his Facebook page dismissed claims it had anything to do with his politics.

It came after Mr Withill was condemned by anti-fascist campaigners.

He insisted his Nazi 'likes' merely showed an interest in military history. He said he also ‘liked’ historical figures such as George Washington and Gandhi.

Hope Not Hate writer Simon Cressey said: 'We all have heroes and we all take inspiration from a variety of people. So imagine my amazement when I discovered that a Leeds UKIP candidate listed a number of Nazi war criminals as some of the people that inspired him.'

But on his Facebook page Mr Withill defended himself, claiming that Hope Not Hate were trying to imply that 'knowledge and interest in some of the Military leaders of the Third Reich implies that in some way my politics is influenced by this'.